


Every Shadow

by cosmicviscera



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Spanish, Cuban Lance (Voltron), F/M, How Do I Tag, Lance (Voltron) Speaks Spanish, M/M, Mafia AU, Texan Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 17:05:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18695713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicviscera/pseuds/cosmicviscera
Summary: "When everyone you thought you knewDeserts your fight, I'll go with youYou're facin' down a dark hallI'll grab my lightAnd go with you"Ten years after Tex's unexpected death, Keith returns for answers.After years of running and hiding, Lance decides that it's time to face the music, and go back home.Their fates unknowingly intertwined from the beginning -- can they find a way to help each other as they look for the meaning behind the madness that it both their lives; and change their worlds forever -- for better or for worse?





	Every Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> lol idk wut im doing, ty 4 reading ily

**_Greywing Cinemas, Dallas, Texas. December 7th._ **

**_09:34 PM_ **

**_Nine years ago._ **

 

“I'm just going to get us a drink,” Krolia said to a ten-year-old Keith. His bangs flopped in his face and he had a permanent scowl, even though it was his birthday. He chewed on a hangnail. Krolia smiled at him and patted his thick black hair. He looked up at her with wide violet eyes, but only for a second and went back to scanning the movie theatre lobby.    
   “Okay,” he agreed easily, looking around for his dad. He'd left somewhere around the credits, and hadn't come back yet.    
   “When you find your dad, give me a holler, yeah?” Keith nodded. “Why don't you check the bathroom?” Krolia suggested. Keith bobbed his head mechanically, and took for the gents'. He knew, though, before he went, that Tex wouldn't be there. When he'd left, he hadn't said: “goin’ to the bathroom” as usual. He hadn't said anything. He'd gotten a text, blanched and crept past Keith to the exit.    
   When Keith pushed open the restroom door with an ominous whine, he was surprised to find the place deserted. He'd expected  _ someone _ to be there if not Tex.

   “Dad?” He called, not expecting an answer. None came, so he left. Krolia was sitting at a table in the lobby, chilled drinks warming in the radiator heat.    
   “Hey, Keith. Have you seen your dad?” She was trying to ask it casually, but Keith could tell something was wrong. It was that tiny crease between her eyebrows. It was the way she hunched over her phone, the way she didn't meet Keith's eye for more than a second.    
   “No,” he said, worrying. He sat down and slurped his Berry Blast, but he couldn't concentrate. She was fidgeting with the hem of her dress, a floral one covered in the pattern of banana peels that Tex had gotten her as a joke gift last Christmas. Keith would remember this. 

  “Maybe I'll just call one more time, hm?” she said almost to herself. The theatre was clearing. A listless waiter started sweeping away popcorn and candy wrappers, carefully avoiding the sticky bits of carpet with an eagle eye trained to pick the real from the illusion of colourful swirls and splatters.

  “I'll go check outside,” Keith said after Krolia announced that Tex wasn't picking his cell.

  “Don't wander too far,” She said, eyes fixed on her screen. 

_ The person you are trying to reach is not answering. Please try again later. _

__ The air was biting and freezing cold. Keith's fingers were almost immediately numb and he stuffed them deep into his jacket pockets. Snow was steadily falling around Greywing Cinemas, making the road unusable and the atmosphere unusually quiet. People with their chins to their chests scurried past like large mice, looking for shelter. 

  Keith walked bravely, if not stupidly, in the minus-zero weather, calling for his dad in his mind. 

_ Maybe he'd walked off. Wandering. Maybe he left, like they do in the movies - a kiss goodbye. Cigarettes.  _

__ But Tex didn't smoke. He also didn't “wander”. 

  Keith's boots crunched in the fresh snow. White snow. Red snow.

  “Red snow?” he wondered aloud. He was well behind the cinema now, the sun dipping into the horizon. The sky was a brilliant burning orange, a false warmth. He crouched low, to get a good look at what he thought might be a winter flower, a rare blossom.

  It was just red snow. Dots of it, leading like pebbles on white water, to the far back where they threw the popcorn and the wrappers no one wanted. He made sure not to crush the blossoms. 

  Something smelled sweet and rotten in the back. The smoke tunneling out from an unseen chimney. 

  He saw the boots. The hiking boots with the spikes that Krolia hated -- mostly because Tex wore them everywhere -- peeking out from the large green dumpster.  

  “Dad?” Keith ventured closer to the boots. Beige was stained with more flowers, and Keith began to shiver for the first time. It wasnt that cold back here. “Dad, c'mon,” he pleaded, begged. 

  He heard the buzzing of countless flies.  

 

***

**_445C Agua St, Havana, Cuba. March 12th._ **

**_02:45 AM_ **

**_A little over a year ago._ **

 

   “Hey, Lancito!”

  Lance stopped dead in his tracks, a cold sweat breaking out on his skin.  _ Shit.  _ He paused and slowly turned. There, across the street, illuminated by the yellow light of the street lamp, was James Griffin, his lip curled in a condescending smirk. He had his hands dug deep in the pockets of his jacket, which could mean two things: he was cold or he had a knife, and Lance didn't want to find out. 

  “ _ Holá _ , James,” Lance replied, trying not to sound scared. The duffel bag on his back was already starting to feel heavy, and he had a train to catch. “ _ ¿Que pasa? _ ” 

  “ _ ¿Nada, tù? _ ” He said striding purposefully towards Lance who was now shivering, despite the extra layers. “What you got there? Taking a trip?”

  “I'm leaving, Jeremy, and I'm not coming back,” Lance blurted. This gave the other boy pause. 

  “Oh, yeah? And where're you gonna go? You know, you're a real  _ pendejo _ ,” he snarled. 

  “I'm not joking, I'm leaving!” 

  “Yeah, for no good reason! You're going to leave us here?” Jeremy was referring to the rest of their rag-tag band of 'friends’ who never really got along but stuck together out of spite. The first person to leave would be labelled a traitor, and the only thing worse than a traitor was a murderer. 

  “I have a good reason, and you know it. I can't stay here,”  _ waiting to die _ , he didn't mention. But Jeremy knew. “I can't shut up about it.”

  “So you'll just run away?” His voice was quiet and slightly broken. Lance didn't respond. “Waow, you're really serious, huh?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  He didn't meet the other boy's eyes until he felt cold fingers on his chin, tilting his face towards the light and towards Jeremy. “Don't forget me, y'hear?” His chocolate eyes were pleading, glittering, and Lance felt the strange urge to wipe the tears from them. The light gave his face an ethereal glow. 

  “I won't, I promise.”

  “ _ Pendejo, _ ” he muttered, leaning in and placing a chaste kiss on Lance's cold chapped lips. “Come back alive.”

  “If I come back at all.” Lance breathed, his heart hammering. Before he could do or say something horrendously stupid, he turned on his heel and hastened down the road, using an incredible amount of will power not to turn around. 


End file.
